Larry Silverstein (PBS):
"I remember getting a call from the ah fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were going to be able to contain the fire, I said you know, we've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is is pull it, ah and they made that decision to pull, and then we watched the building collapse."

'In the afternoon, Building 7 accidently fell, level and straight down (as fast as a ball falling), collapsing through itself into a nice consolidated, cut-up footprint as a result of a few office fires (...and NIST computer animations - ha!). ...and everyone was backed away because they knew it was gonna fall, but yet NIST says this was an extraordinary unprecedented event never before seen. Submitted by TomT on Sun, 10/03/2010 - 9:37am @ http://911blogger.com/news/2010-10-01/environmentalist-osama-bin-laden-demands-green-economy#comment-238671

Larry Silverstein on where he was on 09/11/2001:
Charlie Rose: "Where were you on September 11th?"
Larry Silverstein: "Um, ya know, ya, I was home. Um, and I, the only reason, I wasnt where I was, every morning uh subsquent to the 26th day of July, um, I was, my, my mornings were spent, um usually at a breakfast metting at windows, a 8:00 breakfast meeting windows, the top. And going out to visit my tennants, my new tennants, at the Trade Center, getting to know them (todo: complete transcript).

10:29 a.m. to 5:21 p.m. EDT 09/11/01:
The emergency responders quickly recognized that WTC 7 had been damaged by the collapse of WTC 1. A number of fire teams entered WTC 7 to examine the damage, locate fires and possibly extinguish them, and search for occupants. As early as 11:30 a.m., FDNY found that there was no water supplied by the hydrant system to fight the fires that were visible. With the collapses of the towers fresh in their minds, there was concern that WTC 7 too might collapse, risking the lives of additional firefighters. Within the next two hours, serious discussions were underway regarding the cessation of any efforts to save WTC 7, and the final order to cease was given at about 2:30 p.m. The Con Edison substation was shut down at 4:33 p.m. (NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Chapter 6). http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201A.pdf NCSTAR 1A p60

The major concern at that time at that particular location was number Seven, building number seven, which had taken a big hit from the north tower. When it fell, it ripped steel out from between the third and sixth floors across the facade on Vesey Street. We were concerned that the fires on several floors and the missing steel would result in the building collapsing. So for the next five or six hours we kept firefighters from working anywhere near that building, which included the whole north side of the World Trade Center complex. Eventually around 5:00 or a little after, building number seven came down. -Chief Frank Fellini FDNY Operations http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110217.PDF

NBC News reporter NBC 9/11/01 16:49: "We are also told by Port Authority officials that the building over there, which is building number 7, which you can see, it is referred to as building number 7. It's about, oh, I would say, a 20-story building – that there is some concern on the part of Port Authority officials about the stability of that building at this point. So obviously, as we have been discussing all day, a very, very difficult circumstance as to exactly when that area really is going to be truly secure."

Early on, there was concern that 7 World Trade Center might have been both impacted by the collapsing tower and had several fires in it and there was a concern that it might collapse. So we instructed that a collapse area --

Q. A collapse zone?

A. Yeah -- be set up and maintained so that when the expected collapse of 7 happened, we wouldn't have people working in it. There was considerable discussion with Con Ed regarding the substation in that building and the feeders and the oil coolants and so on. And their concern was of the type of fire we might have when it collapsed. They shut down the power, and when it did collapse, the things that they were concerned with would have been. That's about it. -Chief Frank Cruthers FDNY Citywide Tour Commander nytimes.com

FDNY communications from the early afternoon of September 11 show that commanders were concerned about a possible collapse of WTC 7 due to damage that it suffered from falling debris and the fires that were beginning to grow within the building. (See Chapter 6.) Orders were given for FDNY personnel to pull back from the immediate vicinity around mid-afternoon.NCSTAR_1-9_Vol1_p162

Fore-Knowledge:D. Fire Chief announces imminent Collapse WTC: This Is Their Story From the August 2002 Firehouse Magazine

FDNY Deputy Chief Nick Visconti Division 14, 34 year veteran

Visconti: “I was in my car. I was listening to the traffic reports because I was going to Queens. I was doing primary work for the UFOA (Uniformed Fire Officers Association) …I walked out and I got to Vesey and West, where I reported to Frank. He said, “we’re moving the command post over this way, that building’s coming down” I remember standing just where West and Vesey … a couple of guys right at the intersection, and we were trying to back them up – and here goes 7. It started to come down and now people were starting to run.”

THE REST OF THE DAY WE WERE UNLOADING TRUCKS WE WERE JUST DOING WHATEVER LITTLE THINGS WE COULD DO BUT THEY WERE WAITING FOR WORLD TRADE CENTER TO FALL nytimes.com

THEN LIKE I SAID BUILDING SEVEN WAS IN EMINENT COLLAPSE THEY BLEW THE HORNS THEY SAID EVERYONE CLEAR THE AREA UNTIL WE GOT THAT LAST CIVILIAN OUT WE TRIED TO GIVE ANOTHER QUICK SEARCH WHILE WE COULD BUT THEN THEY WOULDNT LET US STAY ANYMORE. -TIERNACH CASSIDY FNDY ENGINE 3 nytimes.com

We were ordered down from the tower ladder because of a possible collapse at Tower 7 -Pete Castellano FDNY Ladder 149 nytimes.com

After I think maybe about 30, 45 minutes EMS citywide came up on the air and requested a supervisor, if there were any supervisors on the air. They made the request several times. Nobody answered. I came up on the air and told them I was available. They asked me to report to -- establish a staging area at West Broadway and Chambers, which I did. I went up to Broadway and Chambers. When I got there, there was approximately maybe 20, 25 ambulances there mixed: municipal, voluntary, volunteer ambulances. We started establishing a treatment area there. A few minutes after that a police officer came up to me and told me that the facade in front of Seven World Trade Center was gone and they thought there was an imminent collapse of Seven World Trade Center. I felt the location we were at was too close to Seven World Trade Center. So we advised citywide we were moving the staging area to North End and Greenwich Street. -Lieutenant William Melarango FDNY EMShttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110045.PDF